The completion of the successful treatment and discharge last week of Dr. Rick Sacra, the U.S. physician with the deadly Ebola virus marks an historic event in the history of our medical center. This is clearly what we mean by serious medicine, extraordinary care!
The support for this effort from across all aspects of the medical center, the county and state health departments, and citizens of metro Omaha and the state of Nebraska has been outstanding. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to over the past three weeks who told me how proud they were of our medical center for taking on the care of this very challenging patient.
As you probably know, the Nebraska Biocontainment Patient Care Unit at The Nebraska Medical Center is one of only four facilities in the country fully equipped to take care of patients with highly contagious infectious diseases, and is the largest of such facilities.
The current Ebola outbreak has already killed nearly 3,000 people in West Africa. Top U.S. health officials have warned that the number of infected people could explode to at least 1.4 million within the next four months.
That being the case, it’s likely we may be asked to care for other patients with Ebola in the future.
If it does happen, we will be more than ready.
Our first patient with Ebola demonstrated the broad level of commitment to cutting-edge patient care throughout our institution. Physicians, nurses, laboratory personnel, and other health professionals in the clinical enterprise stepped up and worked around the clock. Others stepped up to fill the spots of these individuals in their regular clinical assignments so that other patient care activities were not disrupted.
Components of UNMC – such as members of the College of Public Health and the office of the vice chancellor of research – also met the challenge in bringing their breadth of specialized expertise to a common goal. This effort reinforces why the clinical integration process we have been going through for the last year is so important and powerful.
On another front, I also would like to take this opportunity to recognize and thank all our clinical staff for taking on a higher volume of patients in recent weeks. Many of these patients are the result of the ongoing failure of contract negotiations between Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska and CHI Health.
With CHI Health providers no longer “in network” for BC/BS, patients are leaving the CHI Health system and coming to the clinical enterprise for care.
Our hospitals have been at or above capacity and our clinics also have seen a marked increase in patient volume. I want to express my sincere thanks to all who have put in the extra time and effort to make this happen. This is a great opportunity for us to demonstrate the outstanding care we provide to a new group of patients and families. You make us proud!